Magnetic Fields Get a Documentary

Film features Stephin Merritt getting personal

A new documentary will be released this spring about cranky, erudite Magnetic Fields mastermind Stephin Merritt. Directors Kerthy Fix and Gail O'Hara (of Chickfactor magazine) shot the as-yet-untitled film over ten years, chronicling Merritt's career and personal life, neither of which he's been particularly eager to discuss in interviews.

According to a press release, "Included is the backstory of Merritt's first musical forays, his development as a writer-- from proofreader and copy editor at Spin to becoming one of Time Out New York's most dynamic scribes-- and his response to charges of elitism and racism."

The film will screen at the Mezzanine in San Francisco as part of the San Francisco Film Society's SF360 Film+Club screening series, with an official premiere to take place at an unnamed American film festival this Spring. After the screening, there will be a Q&A with Merritt, Fix, and Merritt's bandmate and manager Claudia Gonson. The previous night, the Magnetic Fields will play at Oakland's Fox Theater, and they also have a show scheduled for the night after the screening at San Francisco's Herbst Theatre.

In other Magnetic Fields news, their new album, Realism, will arrive Tuesday, January 26, via Nonesuch. You can hear the full album streaming on MySpace. Nonesuch have posted a couple videos of Merritt and Gonson having vaguely uncomfortable conversations about the LP. In the first, Merritt says, with little visible irony, "I'm an auteur." In the second, Gonson mentions that the band borrowed tablas from DevendraBanhart to record the album.